off road GPSs? recommendations?

has anyone actually got one of those off road GPSs that displays an OS-style map rather than just a road map, and what are your good and bad points about it please?

I have tried using my etrex vista hcx off road, thinking that I could just about cope with the fact that it doesn't display geographical features, which you could,but for the fact that the main problem of it which is that it doesn't actually know (or forgets) which way you are heading, so it is really confusing to read because you could be heading towards the bottom of the screen, or the top, you just don't know.

So was just wondering how the off road specific ones can handle this and/or why the etrex can't...

it doesn't actually know (or forgets) which way you are heading, so it is really confusing to read because you could be heading towards the bottom of the screen, or the top, you just don't know.

Sounds to me like you'd got it set to always point North. There should be a setting to always point in direction of travel (which it knows so long as you're moving - unless it's one that has the electronic compass).

I can see the point in having GPS to plot waymarker to tell you your route easily and quickly but can't see the point in seeing a 3"x3" square of O/S map. You need the big view with an O/S map to use it properly.

I can see the point in having GPS to plot waymarker to tell you your route easily and quickly but can't see the point in seeing a 3"x3" square of O/S map. You need the big view with an O/S map to use it properly.

The ones I've used allow zooming in and out. The Satmap even switches between different scale maps - I'd imagine the Garmin and Memory Map ones do too.

I'd say Satmap too. It ain't perfect but crucially you can fully operate it with gloves on. The MOD recently rejected touch-screen interfaces for field equipment due to this and other practicable reasons. Satmap have also moved into supplying the military. Got to be a good sign.

The down side is that the replaceable visor is easily marked, so the unit doesn't stay pristine for long. However, almost every part can be replaced so you can have the unit remade every now and again.

I went for a GPS after three disasters within a week last year in the Lakes. I'm good with maps and I've got a great sense of direction, but the clouds came down on Highstreet and we marched off in completely the wrong direction for nearly half an hour! Visibility was down to 15 feet at times though. The following day it happened again at Buttermere. We were completely lost when a couple walked past with an ancient GPS. We used it to find our position on the OS map.

That's the thing with GPS. When you have it, you feel like you've wasted the money because you only ever need it for a couple of seconds, and then it's back on the bag again. You feel like you always know where you are, and that's because with GPS, you do! It's subtle but extremely powerful.

Satmap used for the first time in anger this weekend over Consiton. **** me what a god send. As per previous comments, I thought I had wasted the dosh on the inital purchase back in June. Highly rated piece of kit, just need to arrange more weekends away to use it more!

I have a satmap - it is excellent - best toy I have bought for the bike.

I run it with a 1:25000 map of a 70km squared sector that covers all my riding options (Tunnel Hill, Surrey Hills, Swinley Forest), which was about £80 or so.

I have uploaded loads of gpx files sourced from the web (bikely, etc) and recorded loads more from rides with groups like the Muddy Moles, MTB Britain, Diary of a Mountain Biker.

You can also trace the route you want to follow by dropping waypoints with the joystick control, or set a quick goto point to enable you to cycle to some location.

You can set it to orientate the map to the direction you are riding and also mark your tracks with red dots, which is useful when used in the trail orientation mode.

You activate the route you are going to follow and it is shown as a light brown line on the map with direction arrows (which you can reverse) and, if you set the res. to about 1:3000, you can ride at pretty much full speed whilst following the route.

You can also set it to display all inactive routes as a grey lines, so you are aware of all the other trail options in the area (useful in closely packed areas like Swinley forest).

As it just shows an OS map it is easy to break out of a route early and find your way home (even in the dark if your lights fail).

I also use it in the car with a UK 1:5000k map as I am tired of car type satnavs sending me up unsuitable roads, etc. I either trace the route or just drop a goto point and then zoom in and out as required to see where I want to go.

The company is British (Leatherhead) and was started by an ex-RAF pilot I believe so he probably has a good idea about navigation.

As a confirmed Satmap fanboy, I'd be much more tempted to get one of the Garmin bike computers (the mapping version) over the Satmap for the bike. I've got an Edge 305, and while it doesn't provide any sort of real navigation with maps, it is the best cycling aide I've had (racing yourself in a Gran Turismo sort of way is great fun). My cycling fitness went through the roof with that unit. It's built like the brick proverbial too. I think the latest units do have maps, and Garmin do provide OS too on their top line models. I think the key thing to look for is GLOVED operation. Essential in my opinion.

I went for a Satmap as I couldn't give a monkeys about my cadence, heart rate etc etc

I just wanted the best mapping gps unit that was available and the Satmap fulfils that role perfectly. I does give some useful info about distance, elevation, speed etc but with about a dozen other variables that are irrelevant to me.

I've used it for walking as well as on the bike and its showed me the way in a few places that would have had me scratching my head with out it.

Sounds to me like you'd got it set to always point North. There should be a setting to always point in direction of travel (which it knows so long as you're moving - unless it's one that has the electronic compass).

@bonj in map options you should be able to set orientation to either North or Track up

nah, I've seen that option and tried it on both settings with no joy. It seems to be random whatever setting it is on. It's as if it's trying to point towards the nearest road.

hen there's something wrong with it - that's just not how Garmin's are meant to work.

well it works fine on the road.
but when i took it off road, it was always pointing the wrong way, no matter what I had the settings on. I admit that I may not have tried hard enough to try different combinations of different settings or do an objective repeatable test.

Ah right - so basically it had a poor lock by the sounds of it. Suprising really as my Etrex H which doesn't have the electronic compass that yours does seems to work just fine even under trees. Maybe worth returning it to Garmin as that just doesn't seem right unless you're riding in deep sided valleys all the time (which can cause problems for any GPS).

well it works fine on the road.
but when i took it off road, it was always pointing the wrong way, no matter what I had the settings on. I admit that I may not have tried hard enough to try different combinations of different settings or do an objective repeatable test.

Sounds like you may have the electronic compass enabled which, unless the eTrex is perfectly horizontal, is a chocolate teapot. It's only active below a certain speed which is presumably why it appears to work on roads (when you're travelling faster). Turn in off by holding the "search" button (I think) down until it says it's switched off.

I bought one earlier this year and used it to guide me along the MTB C2C.
It comes with a complete set of the UK OS 1:50,000 maps, which are pretty good for off-road cycling.
I drew the route as a track on MM, one track for each day, and transferred them across. Each day I opened the appropriate route, zoomed into the map and followed the track.
It uses AA batteries and the Lithium ones lasted a day and a half (around 18 hours) in the energy saving mode.
Had absolutely no problems with it, you can zoom in and out to see as much as you want and it is so much easier than carrying a map.
It aligns the screen to the direction you're facing, shows you as an arrow near the bottom of the screen, shows the OS map and your route drawn on top.
I think it's a fantastic piece of kit and it must have saved at least an hour a day pulling out the map, confirming where I was and then working out where I should go.
If you want an electronic map, then this is ideal.

It sounds as though you have it set to navigate by car (on road basically). You should have a setting for navigating off road. In my Oregon it's in Setup-Routing, then you need to set guidance method to off road & Lock on Road to NO.

Is it possible to have car-style routing but using bridlepaths? It would be great to plan a route from A->B and get suggestions for bridlepaths. Might be difficult to write as an algorithm as roads probably will be faster / shorter option, but would be great to have a route that minimised road use automatically.

yes would be ideal but currently the inaccuracies in mapping and general trail realignment would make it pretty ineffective. Whats on the map aint necessarily whats actually on the ground even for bridleway tracks. It works for cycle - road because the under lying map data has been provided for the gps to follow. You would need to extend the same for bridlepaths etc.

I've got a feeling road maps and off road maps store the paths in different methods. The road maps are stored as vectors while the off road are stored more as pictures laying over the GPS grip or something. I forget the details, but the cux was that you couldn't do travelling sales man style algorithm on off road topo style maps or o/s because they did not have the path data in the same format.

I've got a feeling road maps and off road maps store the paths in different methods. The road maps are stored as vectors while the off road are stored more as pictures laying over the GPS grip or something. I forget the details, but the cux was that you couldn't do travelling sales man style algorithm on off road topo style maps or o/s because they did not have the path data in the same format.

That's pretty much how I understand it, yep. I prefer the Satmap to the Garmin Oregon or Dakota partly because it's more intuitive to use ime, partly because it doesn't have a touch screen and partly because the screen itself is significantly larger and clearer making it all-round easier to read.

Viewranger on a smartphone also works very well and is a bit of a no brainer if you already have a phone that you carry with you anyway.